Back in the day, when Apple was younger, there was a blog called 'The Unofficial Apple Weblog' (TUAW), and that it was highly-appreciated by fans of the tech company.
Founded in 2004, it was so well-known for its contribution in providing informative articles, and was was a well-respected source for Apple news and insights, that even Apple itself acknowledged TUAW's contribution.
The website was around for over a decade, until 2015, when AOL, which owned TUAW at the time, decided to shut it down.
But apparently, its death was not permanent, because someone apparently becomes a new owner of the now-defunct blog's domain, and has populated the blog with AI-written articles.
And its original writers aren't at all pleased.
Here, in the modern-days of tech, where AI has slowly taken over the web and beyond, TUAW and its original writers have become victim of this emerging technology.
It's realized that Web Orange Limited acquired the TUAW domain, and relaunched the website.
While it's acceptable for anyone to purchase a domain name as long as it's expired, the revival of TUAW is met with controversy because not only the owner allegedly uses AI to generate content, but also attribute the AI-made posts to the blog's original owners, all of whom haven't involved in TUAW for years.
Christina Warren, a former TUAW writer that is now working for Microsoft and GitHub, discovered that her name was being used to publish new posts on the blog.
She shared screenshots showing her byline on recent articles despite leaving TUAW in 2009.
Warren said that she was shocked after seeing her name next to an AI-generated photo and a generic bio.
She's not the only victim, because her former colleagues that were also original writers of TUAW, like Brett Terpstra, Chris Rawson, and Chris Ullrich, have also had their names and images replaced with AI-generated equivalents.
"I thought the worst thing that could happen would be like with MTV News where the archives just go away, but I was faced with this paradox where what’s worse than not having any archive at all is this bastardized version, this weird zombie corpse of a thing that looks like what it was but isn’t," she said to The Verge.
"I was like, ‘Fuck you, genuinely fuck you.’ You can quote me on that," she said.
Warren expressed her anger, stating that seeing a "zombie" version of TUAW was worse than having no archive at all.
Web Orange Limited claims to be "revitalizing" TUAW’s legacy by rewriting archived content. After Warren contacted the company and sending a “firmly worded email” threatening legal action, the new TUAW owner changed her byline to Mary Brown.
Other writers' names were similarly altered.
In response to the change, Christina Warren and her former TUAW colleagues are relieved tp see that their names have been removed from the new site
What Web Orange Limited got things right from the beginning, is publicly telling the truth through TUAW’s 'About Us' page, which says that the site was purchased "without its original content" from Yahoo IP Holdings LLC.
So, while TUAW was once a cherished resource for Apple fans, the new ownership is creating a different story altogether.
It's worth noting that this new owner appears to manage other AI-driven websites and is trying to conceal their activities.
The case of TUAW being acquired by Web Orange Limited to post AI-generated articles showcase a broader issue on AI content and identity theft.
